E. Manawari is a multi-genre author from the island of Siargao, Philippines. Her previous works under an old pen name are locally published and a few are part of an online platform for its paid stories program.
On better days, she also draws digitally and in watercolor. She’s a fur mom to one sassy cat, her company during long writing nights.
Follow her journey at emanawari.com
Frances Park is a Korean American author of novels and memoirs published around the globe. Her books have been praised by The Straits Times, The Washington Post, The Korea Times, USA Today, The Times Literary Supplement, The London Times, The Korean Quarterly, The Taipei Times, National Public Radio, Voice of America, Radio Free Asia, CNN, Newsweek, and Good Morning America.
Her stories reflect an identity born of two worlds. In her novel Blue Rice, a Korean woman who survived the war must acclimate to 1960 white America as she senses her husband’s desertion. Her poignant novel The Summer My Sister Was Cleopatra Moon portrays the spiritual deformity of two Korean American sisters growing up in Washington, DC suburbia in the 1970s. That Lonely Spell, a memoir-in-essays, was praised by Kirkus Reviews as “a fresh take on the Korean American memoir by a writer from a generation whose voice has seldom been heard.” Her award-winning short stories and personal essays have appeared in over fifty magazines including O, The Oprah Magazine, The Massachusetts Review, The Columbia Journal, The London Magazine, Arts & Letters, The Bellevue Literary Review, and The Chicago Quarterly.
The theme of losing her father young haunts much of the author’s work. In Ahn Love she imagines him today, had he lived to the ripe old age of ninety.
Frances lives outside Washington, DC. Visit her at parksisters.com.
Bea Bustamante is a school teacher by day and a fantasy author by night. After graduating with a degree in Communication from Ateneo de Manila University in 2019, she briefly dipped her toes into the advertising world as an account manager before realizing her true calling as an educator. She is currently finishing her professional teaching certification program at the University of the Philippines. When she’s not teaching or writing, Bea can be found sharing her literary adventures with the BookTok community on her TikTok profile, @missbeabooks or reviewing her favorite makeup products at @missbeabeauty. She is an avid reader and is running out of space for her books at home. She is also a songwriter and musician, occasionally releasing music under the stage name “beabu.” She lives in Laguna, Philippines with her husband. She Who Devours is her first novel.
Ines Bautista-Yao is the author of One Crazy Summer, What’s in your Heart, Only A Kiss, When Sparks Fly, All That Glitters, Someday With You, Swept off my Feet, Plain Vanilla, My Quarantine Diary, My Lola’s Love Letters, and Happily Ever After…Again. Her short story ‘Before the Sun Rises’ is part of the Ateneo University Press anthology Friend Zones, and her short stories ‘Puppy Love’ and ‘Saving Valentine’s Day’ are part of the #RomanceClass Tropetastic Kindness Bundle anthologies. She is also the author of children’s books A Mask of My Own and Best Friends Forever in Jesus.
She teaches at the Ateneo de Manila University, edits the Jesuit magazine The Windhover, and is the former editor-in-chief of Candy and K-Zone magazines. She lives in the Philippines with her husband Marc, daughters Addie and Tammy, and dogs Cinnamon and Toffee.
Find her on www.inesbautistayao.com. Her socials are @inesbyao and facebook.com/inesbautistayao. Her books are also available digitally wherever you find your digital books and on www.romanceclassbooks.com.
Alice Huang Wijaya is a Chinese Indonesian writer, multimedia storyteller, and tech professional currently based in Singapore.
She has studied, worked, and traveled extensively in the United States, Europe, and Asia throughout her twenties. A versatile multimedia storyteller, she covers a wide variety of eclectic topics such as sex, gender and relationship, underground culture, psychedelics, and spirituality, technology, cryptocurrency and finance. Her work has appeared for media publications like VICE, Rice Media, Cointelegraph, and The Edge.
The excerpts of her debut autofiction The American Dream had been workshopped during her studies with esteemed writers such as Laura Van Den Berg and Jamaica Kincaid. It was also shortlisted for SingLit Station 2020 Manuscript Bootcamp award. Alice holds a Bachelor of Arts from Harvard University.
Cheo Ming Shen @ Tong Ming Shen, or Ming, has 2 decades of experience as a serial Entrepreneur and Investor in South East Asia, and in 2006, co-founded the Netccentric Group and its well-known subsidiary, Nuffnang.
The Netccentric group, Nuffnang and its 21 regional subsidiaries, pioneered the concept of advertising on blogs and social media influencers pages, introducing a new marketing channel for brands, and professional career opportunities for bloggers and social media influencers.
In 2013, Ming conceived and launched the popular mobile blogging platform and community, Dayre.
In 2015, he successfully led Netccentric Ltd as CEO, through an Initial Public Offering on the Australia Stock Exchange.
He exited Netccentric successfully in 2020, and in 2021 was appointed as CEO of one of his investee companies, the Vemimo Group, which owns popular fashion and lifestyle label, Our Second Nature and sustainable label, Atlas Kind.
Ming is also an Angel Investor in several startups and SMEs, actively advising them in an official and unofficial capacity.
Ming was recognized by Businessweek as one of Asia’s Top 25 Young Entrepreneurs. In 2015, he was awarded the Spirit of Enterprise (Singapore) Award. Ming graduated with a Bachelor’s of Science (Honours) in Government and Economics from the London School of Economics.
An avid collector of timepieces and contemporary art, and a lover of food and travel, Ming is happily married to his Thai entrepreneur wife Patty with whom he shares a long awaited daughter, Mila.
Professor Dr. Mushtak Al-Atabi is currently the Provost and CEO at Heriot-Watt University Malaysia. A passionate educator, innovator and an agent of change, Mushtak always challenges the status quo to unlock value. He pioneered the use of the CDIO (Conceive, Design, Implement, Operate) educational framework in Malaysia. He offered one of the first Massive Open Online Courses (MOOCs) in Asia (the first in Malaysia) in 2013. His online classes, Entrepreneurship, Success with Emotional Intelligence and Global Entrepreneurship, attracted thousands of students from 150 countries. He speaks at international conferences and consults for national and multinational corporations, including universities, banks and manufacturing and energy companies, in the areas of leadership, innovation, human development, performance and technology. Mushtak is the author of Think Like an Engineer, Leading with Stories, and Driven by Purpose. His research interests include thermo-fluids, renewable energy, biomechanical engineering, engineering education and academic leadership. He has numerous research publications, awards and honours. Mushtak is a Fellow of the Institution of Mechanical Engineers (UK), a member of the Board of Directors at the British Malaysia Chamber of Commerce and the Chairman of the Vice-Chancellors’ Council of Private Universities in Malaysia.
Founded by Janet DeNeefe in 2004, the Ubud Writers & Readers Festival is one of the world’s leading literary events, held annually in the cultural heart of Bali. Each October, it gathers thousands of literature enthusiasts, offering them the opportunity to engage with renowned writers, poets, and thinkers from around the world.
In addition to thought-provoking literary discussions, the festival presents a rich cultural program featuring traditional Indonesian dance and performances, literary lunches, guided tours of Ubud’s historic sites, late-night festival club, musical and spoken word galas, book launches, and interactive workshops designed to nurture emerging writers and young creatives.
As a celebration of storytelling, ideas, and artistic expression, the Ubud Writers & Readers Festival remains a vibrant meeting place for those seeking inspiration, connection, and dialogue through literature and culture.
Naadhira has been writing since she was fifteen and has never stopped. She spends most of her time getting sucked in books and daydreaming about fictional characters. She’s a lover of words and languages and aspires to make all her dreams come true, specifically to publish all her stories.
Indecipherable is her big debut as an author—a self-published collection of poetry and short stories. Our Tethered Skates is her first fiction book followed by the sequel, Our Tethered Worlds.
She can also be found on Bookstagram, Twitter, and Blog at @legenbooksdary.
Quintin Jose V. Pastrana is an energy entrepreneur, library builder, and writer. He graduated with degrees in Business, International Relations, and Creative Writing from the Universities of Georgetown, Cambridge, and Oxford.
His works include a compendium of indigenous verse poetry, Ambahan, a Love Story (FEU Publications, 2021), a short fiction collection, Infieles: 12 Filipino Stories (Centiramo Press, 2023), and a young adult book, The Kitten who Lost her Purr (Aries Press, 2024).
Quintin is currently President of WEnergy Power Pilipinas and Archipelago Renewables Corporation, a leader in renewables and hybrid energy microgrids, and is an Asia Society, US ASEAN Business Council, and Lannan Poetry Fellow. He is the Founder of the award-winning Library Renewal Partnership, and Asociacion Vuelta, a social enterprise for migrant communities in Spain.
